


Gravitate

by MilkyWayLikeBedHair27



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood and Gore, Emetophobia, Hurt, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hurt Shiro, Hurt/Comfort, No Smut, Other, Platonic Relationships, Sickfic, sick keith, tw
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-08-24 13:26:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8373883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MilkyWayLikeBedHair27/pseuds/MilkyWayLikeBedHair27
Summary: Planet Mehkik's been invaded. The castleship is stuck in its strong gravitational field, messing with the electricity. Keith is injured and sick, but the healing pods are too risky to use.





	1. Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> I'll try my best to update this fic once a week.

The first thing Keith registered when he regained consciousness was the view. It was all red, explosions ringing out left and right, making the ground shake and the sky look dark in comparison to the fires.  
Next came sound. As if through a tunnel, he heard voices screaming fuzzily through his helmet, and if he focused enough (which he found unusually hard to do) he could even make out shouts from around him. Moving his head ever so slightly, he saw that he was leaning against a big boulder that hid the cliff from his view. The battle raged around him but he found it unusually peaceful behind the rock, as if someone or himself had purposely placed him there as to not get in the line of fire.  
The fuzzy sounds were becoming clearer, he noticed faintly. He could almost decipher what whoever was on the other side of the communication link was saying… was it Shiro?  
“eith! – Keith, can you hear me? Keith!” he was repeating, over and over again but each time with more desperation. How long had he been out? Where was everyone? He couldn’t see anything through the blurry haze that was the battle playing out around him, and everything seemed fuzzy.  
He tried to respond, to tell Shiro he was alright, but as soon as he opened his mouth to speak, all he could do was cough. And god, it was painful. Each time he breathed in, pain shot up his side, spreading out everywhere, and he could taste the coppery flavor of blood in his mouth. Dark spots danced at the corners of his eyes as he desperately tried to stop coughing. He found he didn’t even have the energy to lift a hand up and take his helmet off; it seemed to be making things worse. When had all of this happened?  
After what felt like hours, his breathing calmed down, but he realized tears were snaking their way down his cheeks. It was all so painful, all Keith wanted to do was to black out again, but there was a battle to be fought. He had to help his fellow paladins, even though he couldn’t remember exactly why they were even here in the first place. So, after a minute or so of trying to calm his own breathing down enough to form a full word, he finally managed to speak.  
“Shiro – I’m – okay,” he said, struggling to hold back coughs. The pain in his side had gone from bad to worse; he was certain he had broken at least a few ribs. How had things gotten this bad?  
It didn’t matter, he thought through the haze occupying his head, pounding, pounding. He had to fight; they could be losing and his skills were needed in battle. Looking to the left, Keith spotted a cluster of Galra soldiers, all focused on one point farther off. Trying to clear his vision, Keith realized that it was Lance, firing his gun at anything that was made of metal and moved.  
Making up his mind, Keith combined all the energy he had left and lifted himself into a standing position… only to fall right back down again. It felt as if lightning had struck him; white lights danced before him and he was sure they weren’t supposed to be there. What the hell was going on? When had he gotten hurt like this, and how? He realized Shiro had gone silent only when he spoke up again.  
“Keith! Where are you? Are you hurt?” He asked loudly over the sound of metal hitting metal. How did he know what state Keith was in? Upon further investigation, his raw throat indicated that me may have yelled when he fell back down. Figures, he thought.  
“Behind – the – boulder,” he managed before breaking into another coughing fit. The dark spots were getting bigger and more numerous – he wasn’t sure for how much longer he could stay conscious. He felt the warmth of what he knew to be blood seep out of the side of his mouth, and after pressing his hand slightly to his side to find it to be completely numb with pain, it came back bright red. What the hell had happened?  
The pounding in his head had reached such a point that he couldn’t concentrate enough to process Shiro’s instructions through the helmet’s speakers. He tried to get a full breath, but every time he attempted this, he was cut short by his own brain telling him not to go any further, so he lay there, wheezing and trying to breathe as normally as he could.  
The next few minutes were a blur. He could feel himself getting lifted up and carried somewhere, but didn’t register anything else. He could see the fires through his closed eyelids and hear the distant sounds of explosions, but nothing else. Time had no meaning wherever he was. After what felt like twenty minutes, the air around him got cooler and the colors behind his closed eyelids turned to dark blue. He shivered in his cracked armor and tried to open his eyes, even though it felt like the hardest thing he’d ever done. When he finally managed to open them a bit, all he could see were blurry figures running around. The person holding him seemed to have grey hair on the front of his head – was it Shiro? He wondered. Why was he screaming? Weren’t they away from the battle? Nothing made any sense. So, when Keith was placed on what he assumed was a blanket on the floor and he felt the structure he was in – probably a lion – move upwards, he let himself slip into unconsciousness, knowing he was at least somewhat safe. 

 

When Keith suddenly went silent over their helmet’s communication system, Shiro knew something was wrong. The red paladin tended to subconsciously yell while fighting, and even then, he never ignored somebody else talking to him unless it was Lance. So, while Shiro fought, he desperately called out Keith’s name for what felt like hours but was probably only minutes, but to no avail. Finally, right before he went out looking for him instead of fighting the battle, Shiro heard a voice. Well, technically, it wasn’t a voice, but coughing, and it was Keith.  
“Hey! Buddy, are you hurt? Keith, where are you?” he asked frantically and waited until the red paladin could speak before talking again. When he had told him he was ok, that’s when he knew something was really wrong. Keith tended to water down his own problems as to not attract attention, but it never worked with Shiro. Keith gasped between each word, as if he couldn’t get enough air.  
“Keith, where are you?” yelled the black paladin over the sound of Galra soldiers falling and breaking apart. When he responded in the same manner, Shiro took one last swing at his attackers, disarming most of them, and took off running towards a boulder about as tall as two Lances which wasn’t too far away. He quickly found Keith behind the other side, mostly hidden from the battle, and it was not a pretty sight.  
First of all, there seemed to be blood everywhere. Down the red paladin’s face, soaking through his chest piece which was completely shattered, and pooling on the ground beneath him. He was even paler than usual and completely limp against the rock, his eyes closed and his helmet beside him. As Shiro got closer to help him, Keith started coughing weakly, and more blood ran down his mouth. This wasn’t good at all.  
“Hey! Keith! Can you hear me? I need you to stay awake, okay?” said Shiro while pondering about the best way to get his teammate into a lion without hurting him further.  
“Shihh… Shir-“ he mumbled, trying to form words but running out of breath halfway through.  
“I’m here. Stay with me, okay? I’m going to pick you up,” informed Shiro before carefully slipping a hand under Keith’s back, and another under his knees. He was afraid to even touch his ribs for fear of hurting him further. As he gently pulled him up and close to him, he could feel shivers running through the paladin’s body and the warm wetness of blood seeping through his fingers. He had to act quickly.  
Running straight through the battlefield to reach the lions wasn’t what Shiro wanted to do, but rather what he had to do. The battle raged all around them, blasters firing off left and right and the sound of metal sizzling and crackling could be head from everywhere. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Pidge fighting off four Galra soldiers off at once, her tiny bayard doing more than it seemed it should because of its size. She kept on slipping underneath their legs and backstabbing them before turning around and doing something completely unexpected, catching all the soldiers off guard again and again. She fought mostly with brainpower, and Shiro watched while walking fast towards his lion, amazed. Where had she learned to fight like that?  
He ducked to avoid a blast coming from his right and sped up. In the distance, he could hear Lance’s gun going off and Hunk’s frantic shouting while he ran into anything he could. Relieved to hear all their voices, Shiro activated his helmet’s communication link and called out to Allura.  
“Princess? How’s the plan going?” he asked before anything.  
“Pidge got the drive but they all got ambushed on their way back, and I can’t shoot because they’re all on the ground with the army and could accidentally be hit. They’re too preoccupied to get to their lions,” Allura informed him. The original plan was to sneak into the planet’s main base and gather as much information as they could. The planet they were on, Mehkik, had seemed to be the one with the smallest amount of Galra forces so they decided to go down and see what they could find. Getting in was easy, but getting back out again had proved to be rather difficult. A battleship had just come in for landing, bringing food and armour to the residents of this desolate planet, and their landing site had just happened to be right next to where Pidge had left her lion. The invisibility cloak having disabled itself after fifteen minutes, a commander had spotted it and decided to investigate to see if the paladin was anywhere to be found and had been pleasantly surprised to find all five of the Voltron team members in the same base at the same time. Just their luck.  
To escape the base, they had two options: either use the main door or sneak out from the back. Keith had said that the soldiers probably expected them at the back door and they should proceed to sneak out the front, which was probably less heavily guarded, but the place was equipped with body heat alarms. Apparently Galras had a much lower core temperature than humans and alteans because they tripped the alarm in no time.  
Allura had told them to fight while she figured out a way to bring the lions closer to the main door so they could board them and fight the army as one, but she seemed to have trouble with the red lion. Since everyone was so busy trying to fight off an army by themselves, no one noticed when Keith went silent after a particularly large explosion off West. Apparently, if a paladin gets hurt in combat, their lion shuts down to protect them inside the hull, activating a strong particle barrier that could only be opened by another paladin or someone the lion trusted. It was only when Allura asked Shiro if Keith was okay because she couldn’t get to the lion when Shiro started calling out. What a great plan they had formulated, he thought bitterly.  
But, he wondered while jogging closer and closer to his lion, why had the red lion shut itself off if her paladin was nowhere near? He came up with the only reason he could: there were too many enemies. She couldn’t risk damaging herself while she waited for her paladin to make his way to her so when he finally got in, she would be ready to protect him. The lions rarely ever moved on their own, only when they found it absolutely necessary. Red had probably felt Keith hidden behind the boulder and thought him to be safe enough for her to stay where he knew she was.  
A bomb exploded to Shiro’s left, the shock wave knocking him sideways onto the dusty ground. Keith groaned in his arms and proceeded to cough out more blood, and Shiro hit his shoulder hard against the ground, feeling the unmistakable crack of a bone. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he got up carefully and jogged to the mouth of his lion, which Allura had brought closer to the battle for easy reach.  
“Allura! I’ve got Keith, let’s go!” exclaimed Shiro while the lion’s mouth shut itself behind him. He ran to the cockpit and laid Keith down on a spare blanket in the back.  
“Paladins, get to your lions and evacuate! You’ve got thirty ticks before I blow the cannons!” yelled the princess through everyone’s comms as she fired the castleship’s thrusters. Shiro heard the frantic pants of three paladins rushing to their lions while dodging blows from the Galra, and sat down with a grunt on his own chair, reaching for the command board.  
“Let’s get out of here, Keith,” he murmured before pulling the lever and sending his lion flying upwards, away from this horrible planet.

 

The fuzzy sounds were getting clearer, and Keith could make out individual voices.  
“- do you mean, they don’t-“  
“-gravitational field is too strong, it’s messing with the-“  
“-him in the castle, at least! Don’t you have any first aid kits in the-“  
Everything was moving. As he opened his eyes, he saw through his blurry vision that the other paladins were running around. When had he gotten inside the castle? He found he still couldn’t breathe all the way through. Why wasn’t he in a healing pod? The pain was coursing through his body, making want to go back to being unconscious, but he knew that wasn’t happening anytime soon.  
Shiro’s vague shape kneeled down to Keith’s level. Okay, so he was sitting up against a wall. Somebody had taken off his chestplate, but he could still feel shards of it in his skin, and it was awful. He was trying to focus on what the black paladin was saying, but all the other noises were confusing him and the bright lights were very distracting. Something was flashing red and he could feel the ship’s thrusters vibrating through the floor, which usually didn’t happen. Shiro gently took his head in his human hand, but Keith could still feel the pounding. He was looking into his eyes, he realized. Then, after what felt like a few minutes, Shiro’s voice came into focus, but only because the other paladins seemed to be huddled around a screen at his right.  
“Keith. Keith, I need you to take a deep breath. I know it hurts, but it’ll put your ribs back where they have to be, do you hear me? Keith. Deep breath,” he was saying over and over again. Keith gave the best nod he could, barely moving his head, and even that made him dizzy. He was still panting. Did Shiro really expect him to take a deep breath? It was the last thing he wanted to do right then. But he knew he wasn’t going to leave him alone until he did what he was told, so he grudgingly inhaled as much as he could before breaking into the most painful coughing fit ever.  
His whole body was on fire, even though he was barely even moving anymore. He could feel something unpleasant scraping inside of him, and he lost focus of Shiro, closing his eyes but still hearing his voice.  
“Keith, I know you really don’t want to, but try again, please. One last time, and then it won’t hurt as much, I promise. Keith, can you hear me? Breathe,” he was saying. Why did he want him to do that? He wondered through the haze of pain and blood. What was the point, anyways? His lion was still on the planet, he assumed, otherwise they would be far gone. The ship only ever rattled like this while it escaped a planet’s gravitational field, which meant they were still pretty close. Why was Shiro focusing on him instead of fighting against the Galra forces? Nothing made sense anymore, his brain was a muddled mess, but he could still clearly hear Shiro urging him to breathe. Every time he did, though, it felt like something was blocking him, and it was so, so painful.  
“Keith! Look at me, buddy. Just one breath and it’ll all be over,” he reassured, but his eyes were worried as ever. Making up his mind, Keith decided that the only way to stop Shiro from torturing him any further was to do as he asked. Trying to shut off all of his senses, he counted down. Three… Two… One, and his universe imploded.  
Electric shocks were running through his body, he thought. What else could it be? He was certain he was dying and couldn’t wait for all of this to be over. The darkness that had engulfed him seemed infinite; was that what the afterworld was like? It couldn’t be, he assumed, because he could feel hands on his shoulders. His shoulders… which were attached to his body… which was in the castle. Suddenly, he remembered why he was here, and opened his eyes.  
Everything was blurry and unfocused, all sounds were faint and echo-y, and everything was numb. At least this was better than the pain, he thought miserably before finally passing out from exhaustion.


	2. Chapter 2

Plans weren’t supposed to ever backfire this quickly, thought Lance as he walked into the castle’s main control room. This had been plan B! They had failed and done something wrong before, and now they had done it again in the span of about twenty minutes! He wondered if there was a Guinness Book of World Records for space, because they probably would have made it in there with their current situation, which wasn’t much better than when they had set off the alarms on the planet they were now orbiting.  
Mehkik was, undeniably, huge. It was a black hole-orbiting rock about three times the size of the Earth. Even though the paladins had seen many more, even bigger planets during their time in space, the gravity on this one was something else entirely. Walking on its surface was enough to leave anyone breathless, and Shiro had carried Keith, running, all the way to the ship. The guy was his hero for a reason.   
And now, they were stuck. The planet’s gravitational field was so strong that even using all the castle ship’s thrusters at once wasn’t enough to get them out of orbit. Hunk had left not too long ago to guard the castle in his lion while everyone else frantically tried to think of something, which wasn’t as easy as it sounded considering that the electricity seemed to respond strangely to the gravity. As soon as they all had entered orbit, half the castle shut down and the other half was flickering all over the place. Luckily, Allura used her super awesome superpowers to keep the main control panel running.  
The mood in the castle was so tense Lance sworn he could have cut through it with a knife. Pidge was in the main control room down the hall, using Allura to power her computer as her fingers flew across the keyboard. Shiro was out in his lion, having headed to the nearest Balmera to collect crystals for extra energy. Coran had been against him going alone, but there was no one else to go with him. Keith… could definitely have been better, but he was going to be okay once the healing pods started working again. Allura said she could use her life force to power them but they had very precise power configurations and winging it was way too risky, so all they could do was try to stop his bleeding and wait.   
Lance would have gone, but he was needed more inside the castle. Parts needed moving, parts needed to be held, and most importantly, Keith had to be watched and bandaged up. Lance had basic first-aid training from his time at the Garrison and everyone else was busy, so his staying was logical. Besides, it wasn’t like he hadn’t asked to stay with the red paladin.   
As he walked up to Allura and handed her some parts, he got a good view of outer space from the windows. The planet’s red surface was littered with craters and the black hole could just be seen in the distance, almost unrecognizable from all the stars surrounding it. It would have been a peaceful moment if Pidge hadn’t spoken through his comm and told him to “get his ass over here, Keith was waking up.”   
Bolting out the door before Allura could finish her sentence, he ran all the way to the end of the corridor where Pidge and Keith were located. The first thing he saw was Pidge tying the red paladin’s dark mass of hair back while tapping buttons on a dashboard across from her with her foot. He didn’t feel like asking questions; instead, he kneeled next to his teammate.   
It would have been an understatement to say Keith didn’t look very good. He was paler than ever, his skin warm to the touch. Even though Lance had cleaned him up as best as he could before bringing some parts to Allura from Pidge, more blood had leaked from his wound and the side of his mouth.   
“Got him?” asked Pidge, light from the screens dancing off of her glasses.  
“Yep, thanks,” replied Lance before turning back to Keith, who seemed to be trying to open his eyes.  
“Hey, buddy. Can you hear me? I need you to wake up for a second,” he said as silently as he could. He knew from personal experience that getting hit across the head tended to give you a headache.  
Keith groaned and opened his eyes, slowly focusing on Lance. “Hi,” he whispered before trying to sit up and failing miserably.  
“Whoa, there, you know you can ask for help, right? You wanna sit up?” Asked the blue paladin, and hoisted Keith up as gently as he could against a blanket pile lying on the floor next to the wall after getting a weak nod from him. The movement was obviously causing him pain but Keith kept as straight a face as he could, even when he noticeably paled even more from being upright.   
“I need to know if you’ve been injured anywhere other than your ribs. Can you tell me?” asked Lance, his arm holding him up slightly.   
“No,” he replied roughly before breaking into a coughing fit. Lance noticed how… tired he looked. Because he was so close, the purple under his eyes looked more prominent and he seemed to be struggling to stay awake. Did the boy even ever sleep other than when he was unconscious? He wondered while lifting up the loose shirt Coran had put on Keith after Shiro had wrapped up his torso. The bandages were speckled with dry and fresh blood alike, but thankfully not as much as before. The knife would had cut pretty deep, not to mention that some of his ribs had been dislocated during the explosion. Thankfully, Shiro was able to help, but there was only so much you could do without pods or medical supplies. So, as Lance replaced the bandages and tried to ignore Keith’s pained responses to pressure, he tried to have a conversation. Anything to keep him awake so he would react if Lance accidentally messed something up, which apparently happened more often than he would like to admit.   
“Have you seen the black hole? It’s so cool. It’s got rings all around it and you can see the light getting sucked into its core. When you’re ready to go for a walk, you’re gonna go see the black hole. I’m making you,” he blabbered, desperate to come up with anything to keep his teammate awake while he finished wrapping up the bandage.  
“Did you know time goes by slower when you get closer to the black hole? It’s because the gravity’s pulling you in so fast, and-“  
“Lance,” mumbled Keith, his eyes now closed. “You’re rambling.”  
Lance sighed and waited a few seconds before speaking, thinking about what he was going to say. “Look. You just… you gotta stay awake. I’m not worried or anything, but… I don’t want to hurt you. I’m almost done,” he admitted, while tying the tips of the bandage into a knot and pulling Keith’s shirt back down. “There. Now you can sleep,” he declared, proud of his work. Keith cracked the tiniest of smiles before letting his head slump back against the blanket.   
“This sucks. We could have gotten information,” he mumbled, obviously already slipping out of it. Instinctively, Lance put his hand across the other boy’s forehead, not too surprised to feel the heat radiating from it. Keith was shivering slightly, so he grabbed a blanket from the pile and carefully wrapped it around him.  
“I know. Instead, you went and got yourself blown up and now we’re stuck here. And you’re starting to admit stuff to me, which isn’t normal,” Lance joked, relieved to see the faint smile on Keith’s face. “We’ll get out of it. Shiro went to get crystals, Hunk is guarding, Pidge is being productive as hell and Allura and Coran are fixing up the castle. Nothing’s attacked us yet. Just get better, ok?” Lance whined, almost reaching for Keith’s hand. He wouldn’t admit, but seeing him like this worried the crap out of him. Even if he knew he’d make it out, it was still unnerving to see a friend this pale, this weak from injuries and blood loss.   
“I’ll do my best,” was the last thing Keith said (although sarcastically) before falling asleep, right there next to Lance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooo boy. I know I said I'd try to post weekly updates but I rarely have the inspiration to work on this. I'll try my best! Also, Lance is really hard to write, and I know I somehow messed up with that. Sorry!


	3. Down goes the Castle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> kind of an in-between chapter, trigger warning to anyone sensitive to blood, bone displacement, etc.

To say things were going badly was putting a huge damper on the reality of the situation.  
It had just been an hour since Shiro had left to find crystals, and that’s all the time it took for the Galra to multiply. After about thirty minutes in, Lance had (reluctantly) left to help Hunk fight them all off. Pidge stayed in the hallway, tapping away on her computer and keeping watch over Keith, waking him up every half hour as Shiro had instructed. Allura was still in the control room and Coran had joined in, bringing materials and other objects from the ship’s depths.   
The ship vibrated every few seconds, its thrusters desperately fighting off the gravitational pull. They were slowly slipping away from it, but not quickly enough. Even though the power was slowly returning, the ship depended on Allura to function at least partially. To say the least, they were all in a bit of a touchy situation.   
Coran had come by to check on Pidge’s progress a few moments ago, bringing food and water along with him. He handed Pidge a strange looking pyramid-shaped glowing blue object, which she immediately questioned him about, even though his mouth was already open to give an explanation.   
“What’s this do?” she asked, her mouth half full, examining the unknown object.  
“It’s a container; inside are some medical supplies I thought could be useful,” he announced, eyeing the red paladin to their right. “I’d almost forgotten we still carried them, but they’re old enough that I think they may be compatible with humans,” he explained.  
“And what if they’re not?” asked Pidge, pushing her glasses up her nose.   
“Then nothing will happen. It took a while to find them but I knew we had them somewhere,” he said, shrugging it off as if it was nothing.  
“Wow. Thanks, Coran. I’m sure it’ll help,” she exclaimed before pressing a few buttons on her computer and sliding a translator on her screen. Coran gave her a wobbly-looking thumbs up before heading off in Allura’s direction. “Oh, and try to get him to drink some water! The healing pods should be fixed soon enough!” he announced before turning the corner into the central command deck.   
Having quickly translated the altean markings on each of the objects inside the pyramid container, Pidge scooted over to where Keith lay against the wall, shivering in his sleep.  
“Hey. Keith. Wake up,” she murmured, gently tapping her hand against his shoulder. One of his eyes cracked open ever so slightly and closed again. “mm.”  
“Come on! I have painkillers. And other helpful stuff. Come on, you gotta wake up!” she said a bit more forcefully. Flinching, the other paladin opened his eyes and dragged his left hand over to his stomach, where he weakly felt against the wraps under the oversize shirt he was in.   
“I got stabbed?” he wheezed, incredulous. “Why does my head hurt if I got stabbed?” he continued, clearly a bit out of it. At least his condition wasn’t as critical as Lance’s was when the ship had gotten invaded.   
“Concussion,” said Pidge before handing him a pale green capsule around half a centimeter long and holding the cup of water closer to his face. Seeing Keith’s quizzical look as he eyed the pill in his right hand, Pidge helped him pull it up. “I double-checked, it’s not gonna do anything bad. Worst case scenario, nothing happens at all. You don’t have to take anything, but frankly, you look like you’re trying to singlehandedly hold up the Empire State building,” she explained, mainly talking about the way Keith seemed to flinch at even the slightest movement, or the way his face looked thirteen shades too pale, or the way he seemed to be shaking all over from blood loss or fever, who knew, and she could have gone on. To be honest with herself, she was very worried about Keith’s current condition, even after Coran had said that nothing could happen to him at this point and they really just had to wait until the healing pod was fixed up. Thanks to Shiro, Keith had managed to push his own ribs back into place by breathing, and upon further examination, the blood coming from his mouth was due to vocal cord issues, which also explained his inability to speak above a hushed whisper. Lance had patched up his stab wound pretty well (after having to deal with Keith’s delirious bragging, i-got-stabbed-and-you-didn’t one-sided conversation) and the bleeding seemed to have almost completely stopped. After gentle questioning, Lance had gotten the impression that Keith had gotten in the way of a sentry’s knife, but nothing afterwards.   
The paladin took a shaky breath, decided to listen to his (undeniably very intelligent) teammate, and Pidge let out a sigh of relief, handing him the water. She secretly hoped this would stop Keith’s pitiful sleep-mumbling, at least.  
“Okay, you can go back to sleep now,” she gave him a gentle pat on the shoulder, taking the partially empty cup from him and getting up, trying to ignore the tingling in her legs.   
“Thanks,” he answered, making eye contact. Pidge was happy to see that his eyes didn’t look as unfocused as before. For now, all was going as well as it could be. Then the castle undeniably lurched to the side a few degrees, half the lights illuminating the corridor going out. All was silent for a millisecond before Keith and Pidge heard the echoes of Coran saying “quiznak” in the Control room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a very short chapter, I'll be honest. I haven't felt too inspired to write lately and it's pretty late so I really apologize for any grammar mistakes.

**Author's Note:**

> Edit: Thank you all so much for the amazing comments! This is my first work and they honestly make my heart feel warm and fuzzy inside.


End file.
